Major Trauma Service

The Alfred Trauma Service was founded in 1984. It is the largest and most active Trauma Service in Australasia. Our Trauma Service is one of three Victorian Major Trauma Services (The Alfred, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and The Royal Children's Hospital).

Clinical service overview

The service provides integrated emergency, trauma and critical care 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Over 5,000 trauma patients are admitted annually, with over 1,000 of these patients classed as major trauma.

The Trauma Service is within a modern purpose built facility, which includes:

an onsite integrated helipad

four major trauma resuscitation/theatre bays with digital imaging and dedicated CT and MRI scanning

The Alfred Trauma staff are committed to providing excellence in trauma care through audit, quality improvement, education, training and clinical and laboratory research.

The Alfred Trauma Service is currently engaged in major international Trauma Capacity Building programs in China, India and Sri Lanka.

History

Trauma care has been a focus for The Alfred Hospital for over a century. Through two World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the height of the Road Toll War of the late 1960s and 1970s, The Alfred staff have committed to improve the care of the trauma patient.

The Accident Clinic, the introduction of the Motor Accident Board of Trauma Surgeons in 1984, the TAC Trauma Service, the Trauma Service of The Department of General Surgery 1985, the Trauma Centre and Helipad in 1989, Trauma ICU and dedicated Trauma ward and the establishment of the Professorial Trauma Department in its own right, have all been steps in the evolution of a world standard Trauma Service.

Fundamental to that has been the involvement of the specialist surgical, diagnostic, ancillary medical and nursing services. The Victorian State Trauma System established in the late 1990s was the final step in the provision of an integrated system of trauma care.

The Alfred Trauma Registry

The Alfred Trauma Registry, based within the Trauma Service was established in late 1988, and serves to detail all major and selected minor trauma work undertaken at The Alfred.

The Registry collects patient information from all major trauma admission, all trauma ICU admissions, all trauma transfers, and all deaths after injury. The main functions of The Alfred Trauma Registry are to chronicle trauma activity at The Alfred, monitor quality and service delivery and to supply information to the Victorian State Trauma Registry.

The scope of the Registry has grown considerably since its beginnings, and is linked to the clinical unit with ongoing exchange of information. The Registry thus provides a major trauma database for trauma related research activities largely derived from the considerable major trauma dataset.

The Trauma Registry also provides information for, and contributes to, both The Alfred Trauma Management and Quality Improvement Committee and The Alfred Trauma Morbidity and Mortality Subcommittee.

National Trauma Research Institute (NTRI), Alfred Campus

Research involving the Trauma Service is coordinated by the National Trauma Research Institute: